Media across Northern Ontario reported that medical education faculty and professional staff at NOSM University in Thunder Bay and Sudbury voted 100% in favour of a strike mandate in their negotiations with the university.
The faculty and professional staff are represented by the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University Faculty and Staff Association (NUFSA), members of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 677. NUFSA is calling on the university administration to meaningfully engage with the union at the bargaining table, to ensure that workload issues, compensation and benefits, and working conditions for faculty and professional staff are addressed.
Read about it at these links:
- Sudbury.com: Unionized staff and faculty vote for a strike at NOSM University
- TBNewswatch.com: NOSM University faculty approve a strike mandate
- CBC News: NOSM staff vote in support of strike against university
- CTV News Northern Ontario: Unionized faculty, staff vote unanimously in favour of striking at NOSM U
Quotes:
Darrel Manitowabi, President of the NOSM U Faculty and Professional Staff Union said members are not pleased with the situation at the university. “Our members are disappointed that the university administration is attempting to seriously degrade the quality of education at NOSM U by attacking faculty and professional staff who teach our students, develop innovative northern-centric programming, and support students on their journeys to becoming physicians serving our communities,” he said.
OPSEU Local 677 President Nicole Bessette said NOSM workers should be treated the same as their counterparts at southern Ontario medical school. “We are a school of medicine, like our colleagues in the south of the province, and our faculty and staff deserve to be treated equitably,” she said. “Our students deserve the best education and community members deserve the best doctors trained to meet northern health care challenges.”